Repair
by TheOne16th
Summary: There were a lot of things broken between them. A hole, a tape recorder, their trust, and a whole lot more, but before they could officially become barn mates, they first have to fix their new home and fix... something else. (Lapidot).
1. To Know, To Begin

**Chapter One:** **To Know, To Begin**

Peridot stood in front of the gaping tear that she had caused. She would have asked help from Lapis, but she had retreated to the silo where she would sit and stare into whatever. The barn had been damaged by a Peridot who had different intentions long ago, and now that same gem rubbed her chin, pacing back and forth as she formulated a (ge-)mental plan to fix the destruction.

Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems had left. Garnet, the perma-fusion as Peridot called her (a double-edged name, really), assured her with a stern smile that if ever another one of those Homeworld vessels come back with a band of Homeworld Rubies(or worse), they will be right back to start all over again... _In their FACES!_ Amethyst added with a punch into an imaginary gut. _With more of our shenanigans..._ Pearl rolled her eyes. Waves of parting hands were exchanged, and Steven, who was happy that Lapis agreed with a mixing tolerance and reluctance to allow Peridot as her new-found 'barn mate'. She only wanted one condition though: _Just not near her._ The ocean-blue gem turned her head away.

And so the last words left the half-Rose Quartz gem and they rang: ' _You be good you two!',_ and Peridot responded, waving away to the flashing light of an activating warp pad. A wide smile reflected the crystalline glow. ' _Don't worry! We'll be the best!'_ She said, and with that, hands on her hips, she looked up to Lazuli to show the blue gem her enthusiastic grin, but the only blue she saw was the sky's. The familiar liquid retreat of aqua wings furling back ended at a place not too far and not too unfamiliar: the silo.

Peridot stopped pacing, and that was where she looked. Atop its domed metal surface, sat Lazuli, hugging her knees as she looked out to some far off place with an indiscernible contemplation. Peridot scratched the triangle that was her hair. It seemed that this planet possessed a force that compels gems and lifeforms to stare into places vague and distant. She had observed it first-hand and in most of the good-to-worst entirety of Camp Pining Hearts. She wondered when that will take hold of her, and she remembered that it already did.

But that was not important. She looked back at the damage she had created. She had cleared out most of the broken wood that had initially surrounded the area— splinters to prove it— and had removed the dusted cloth that covered the tear to block the bright sunlight and most of the flying insects (winged-crawlers as she would still name). The only problem now was, irritatingly, the technology. The bulk of the tools that she had been using during the construction of The Drill ran on the power taken from the extra car batteries of Greg, Steven's strange-smelling father.

With his similarly scented and ancient vehicle he called a van gone, most of the tools were turned useless. Except for the hammers and such, but that ran on the power of strength, something her gem-class specifically sacrificed for technical knowledge. Her short easily-tired arms and 'compact' build wouldn't take her far. _If only we had Gem-tech, if only I could get my hands on a drone-augmented constructolizer_... Then she had found herself still reminiscing her non-traitor times using the manifestations of the Gem race's galactic progress, and still cursing the archaic makeshift work of this planet they called 'technology'.

She sighed and held her hand up in front of her mouth, clicking the record button that wasn't there. And then another sigh, hand-in-hand with a frustrated groan and a melting slouch. It just wasn't the same without the tape recorder. She fell on her back willingly, and, pretending that the smooth metal of the recorder was still on her palms, she said: "Log-date, _ughhh_. Facet- _ughhh_. I miss you, tape recorder, the one chronicler of my descent to madness and my ascension to... understanding. Hopefully when I find the sanity to repair you, we'll pick up where we left off, officially archive the logs we produced, and..." And her hand slumped to her side, clicking an imaginary button to stop an imaginary recording. No work that can be possibly done, nothing to log meaningless sentimentalities, and nothing to watch (whatever there was left to watch was objectively garbage now anyway).

Huh, garbage. That's what Lapis called it before she broke her precious tape recorder. It dawned to her. Peridot pulled herself up, her small palms pushing against the soft sun-kissed grass. She looked towards the silo.

It wouldn't be a tape recorder that she needed to talk to.

 **II**

Lapis Lazuli lay on the dome end of the silo's roof. The thin metal beneath her was sun-filmed hot on her skin.

There was something soft about their togetherness, she thought. When was the last time she had a group to trust, to confine, and laugh with? She couldn't quite remember and didn't bother to. They seemed so happy; those Crystal Gems, those warriors of a terrible war long past, and Steven, the young one who saved her... and Peridot, her interrogator now turned turncoat. The mere thought of her spawned ghostly sounds of her calling her name like she did once before she presented her 'apology'. Maybe if she closed her eyes shut and put her thoughts away to something more important...

"Lazuli! Hey, Lazuli!"

Realizing that they were real, broke the calm within her gem. _What now?_ She mumbled as she turned her body to one side, an annoyed grunt following her. Then, she covered ears with the arms that gripped to her head, hoping to cage away the incessant voice.

There won't be a Steven to convince her to come down there in front of her interrogator this time, and yet the calling would not stop. "Hey, Laaaazuli! Come down here, Lapis! I wanna talk to you!" Anymore of this, and it just might remind her of her life spent being stuck in a mirror for an unspeakable amount of time: a perpetual tragedy.

Peridot's calling stopped, and before Lapis could defuse the anger inside her with a sigh, her voice returned . "I'm coming up there, Lazuli! So... please don't push me off!" The silo shook tenderly to the moving of Peridot as she climbed the ladder. She could hear her grunting with every small step she grabbed and left. "Stupid steel cylinder-stepping rods...You could produce the same effect with..." She heard her say, then diving her attention into that whirlpool of annoying discomfort that stirred in her gem. _Great, exactly what I wanted, another disturbance to my peace..._

Soon, the vibrations faded away into steps on the surface where she lay. "You really want me to exhaust myself, huh?" Peridot said, exasperated. Her small footsteps paced near her then a metal sliding was heard on the curved roof of the silo. "Woa- Woah!" Peridot managed to regain her footing. She let out a relieved breath. "Phew. For a second there I thought we were crashing into Earth again." She chuckled. No response. "That wasn't a particularly fun experience, was it? So, anyway, I needed to tell you that-"

"I thought I told you not to come near me." Lapis said, gem turned towards Peridot.

She cleared her throat. "Well, with your back turned to me, I don't see why my distance matters."

A sigh. Steven's voice lulled an echo into her gem. _Get to know her before..._ "What is it?"

There grew a pause filled with unprepared bits of stammering. Lapis pieced it together. Peridot didn't think that she'd get this far.

"It's the... barn. I need your help fixing it."

"Why should I? I won't be living there. I'm fine here."

"I'm not saying that you have to live there. I just need help, you know. The power required to run the tools I would normally use is insufficient."

"So what do you want me to do? Water away your problems?"

"Um... Yes, a-actually." She held a finger up. "We agreed that we would share the barn as a home, so I don't see why you wouldn't want to fix it. I mean, look at this place! There's absolutely nothing here, not even paint cans! Well, _hay_ maybe, but that won't be of much use, and up here, it's slippery and angled, and-and windy!"

 _And away from you._ Lapis would have savored the thought as spoken words, but instead of spitting them out, she slapped them back away. _Get to know her, Lapis._ She sipped a heavy breath, pushing out a suffocating reluctant feeling in her gem, and pulled herself up upon her feet. The wind brushed to her hair and onto her face which stilled at a bored plane of indifference. The looking eyes of Peridot stayed at the side of her cheek. She could feel it, both Peridot's expectant stare and the pulling discomfort of turning her head to the gem that shredded away the information she needed with jolting needles.

But the way she spoke now, from cold and monotone to... this, her insistent cries of being different and new, all the actions that she had done to prove it, and what Steven said... everything was given, except, perhaps, a chance.

Lapis turned her head to Peridot, weighed eyes to meet wide ones. A silence filled the gap between them. Lapis broke the pause with a sigh. "Fine. Let's fix it."

A smile formed on a lime-green face, and the joy and relief that Peridot felt rang through her voice. "Alright!"

"So, where should I— I mean— _we_ start?"

Peridot stood up, eyes closed and finger pointing up, eager to introduce and explain the technicalities of her plan. "First of all, we will be gathering all the stock wo-woah!" Balance left her feet and Peridot yelped in surprise, the sound of her scream cut short as her chin hit the curved metal surface. Her body slid down, hands clawing to climb back up as she did the first time it happened, but now she was too steep down the dome and falling too fast before another word could be said.

A rush of water against a surging wind interrupted her next scream. The clutching feeling of a fall dissipated to a warmth holding her right wrist.

Peridot clenched her eyes shut to the inevitable, but feeling her weight carried and her gem safe from a fall-induced poof, opened them once again. The empty field between the barn and the silo painted a green canvas of a countryside beneath her; grassy plains grazed by the feet of dancing winds and colored only with the dwindling warm green of Summer. As a reflex, she pedaled her feet but found only empty air and no ground. Then, she looked up. Lapis focused out in front of herself, aqua wings soaring, the wind against her hair, and both her hands on Peridot's wrist, keeping her suspended and safe.

"Holy smokes." The once-screaming gem said under a taken breath.

Soon after, they've come still in the air and descended. Peridot felt soft grass upon her feet and the warmth fading from her wrist.

They landed. The same liquid retreat of water sounded with the patting of blue hands. Lapis stood in front of her and looked down with eyes not straying from the usual blankness. On her face, there were the lips giving away a rare smile. "Maybe we should start by being careful." She said.

The smaller gem did not give a quick answer as she rubbed the wrist where Lapis had held her. Peridot looked with a forgetful tilt weighing down on her head. A pause gripped the fulfilling air. Then, she stood up straight, lifting her curious slouch with a point of a finger held upward. "Yes! We should! Thank you for saving me from my doom! I'm forever grateful!" Another pause. Peridot half-expected to see her smile tuck away, but it did not.

"Don't even mention it." Lapis faced up. Now they stood in front of the great tear that gaped at the wooden walls of the barn. "Wow. That looks like a lot of work."

Peridot turned behind her, hands on her hips. "Yes, it will be a lot of work, _team_ work. With your water and my plan, we can finish it together within the day. A little bit of _bwoosh!_ and _bwooshaw!_ and _chachachinngg!_ and it'll be done like it's nothing!" Peridot said, acting out her appropriate sound effects and finishing it with a conclusive side-ward sweep of her hand.

With the mention of water, Lapis glanced at the lake. It stilled, clear and stagnant when once it had been a hand swatting a Homeworld vessel like a fly. "I said that I was taking a break from water." Peridot looked at her, worried that a change of mind was at hand. Lapis turned back at the little gem, shrugging her shoulders. "But I guess I'll make another exception."

Peridot smiled, and the worried shade lifted into a bright shine through her eyes.

* * *

AN: First SU fic, a little side-project. This happens directly after Hit The Diamond, with a slight adjustment since Steven used the warp pad at a different time during Steven Floats.

So yeah, not much to say. I really liked Barn Mates, and I wondered: what happened to Lapis and Peridot? So this is what I think of it until, well, the next episode involving those two changes it.

Anyways, thanks for reading this one! I'll try to update it from time to time, short chapters and all. If I got anything wrong, be free to tell me. Constructive criticism is welcomed, flames nope.

See you on the next one!


	2. Explanations

**Chapter Two: Explanations**

Lapis sat on a cleared out work bench by the hole of the barn. She rested her chin on her hand, elbow pressing against her lap, and body leaning forward. Her eyes, tinted with a glass of boredom, followed an attentive trail at Peridot, who was walking back and forth as the green gem explained her plan with a hand stern on her back and her head pointed up to a cloud of confidence so high up that Lapis could see her neck. To replace her usual upright index finger which sprung active in any of her droning explanations, Peridot utilized a dried twig she had found lost on the grassy ground. It made a good improvised pointing stick for an improvised presentation.

The little gem stopped pacing and her eyes opened to Lapis, who looked back, blue weary eyes to green alert ones

"So, with our lack of the needed tools that I for one would conventionally use without assistance, we will be usin-" Peridot's eyes widened to a realizing hint, which stemmed from Lapis, strike her. She then repelled with an appropriate ' _ahem_ ' from her throat, " _borrowing_ your powers in a way that you will have full and uninterrupted control of them. " Lapis tilted her head and on her face was a curious rise of a brow. Peridot met that with a less-curious grin. "Anyhow, it will be simple. As I have explained initially, we will need resources."

With a break-neck snap, Peridot's hand moved, the twig pointing inwards the hole and to the barn. "The former owners of this barn kept a surplus of wood along with other convenient and meaningless items. We will use that material along with some duct tape, glue, and sheet metal to repair this hole."

The break opened wide and tearing. The edges were cut away jagged, and the bare inner wood jutted out like spikes underneath the skin of the barn's outer red paint. Lapis looked up at it at its mention. It seemed to be a lot of work, and even if they somehow managed to fix it, it wouldn't look at all the way it used to be. _But fixed, nonetheless_ , she thought.

"I will be working on the number of materials we need and you will be-"

"So what did this?" Lapis said, eyes up to the destruction.

There was a jump to her eyes as she returned her look to Lapis. They landed as fast as her interruption. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Who or what did _that,_ you know, that hole? Why is it there? Or was it always there?"

Peridot turned to the barn, holding her chin and humming a thread from her mind as if examining the hole. She turned herself back to Lapis, who waited and wondered what crossed Peridot's gem. A sense of difficulty came to this part of her explanation. Soon, with a lazed eyebrow from Lapis, the twig that Peridot held dipped down to the weakening of her arm until its tip touched the soil. Her short hand behind her went up, scratching the backside of her head(which was just hair).

"Funny, you ask! I had...", with each word, Peridot's voice lowered, "... thought you would have guessed the answers to those questions by now."

Lapis gave a naked shrug of her shoulders. "Well, it seems that I haven't."

A wind brought quiet. Peridot made a pause out of her own little scrambling to find an answer. Lapis's expression stayed the same, still eyes yet so expectant. Again, Peridot turned away, facing the damage which screamed open. No answer still. Lapis tilted her head, tightening the side of her lips, impatient. Peridot placed her free hand under chin, then let it down onto her side when an answer came to her gem.

"If you think this is some distinct and defining feature of rural human architecture, then I'm afraid you're mistaken. The truth is..." She placed a hand on her chest as she turned back to Lapis. "I'm the one who did this and not in the way of actually improving this structure. No, it was... much more complicated than that."

A fuller expression caused by surprise had taken Lapis, but her voice changed to only a slight intrigue. "So it was you? You did this? Why?"

"It's a long story, Lazuli. I..." Peridot's eyes went up to a ceiling of hesitation, then, groaning, she retreated to the ground. A sigh weighed her down as she sat with her knees crossed and the twig by her side. "Look, you know how I was different back then, right? Back when I had my limb-enhancers?"

Lapis's eyes too went up to a ceiling of hesitation, but hers had memories for clouds and it did not linger as long. _The information you hold is too useful for us to discard, Lazuli. You will just make this much more difficult for Yellow Diamond herself. If you continue to resist, we will have to proceed with a more effective protocol, one that won't be comfortable for you._

"Yeah."

"I didn't quite understand everything yet, so I..." a stammer, "sort of... betrayed Steven by attempting to use a Diamond-line communicator and using a robot which is essentially just a giant controllable gem-drone to get away with it, and this is what it did." She gestured a hand to the broken hole. Lapis followed its point, and when Peridot spoke again, she returned to her. "That was directly before I turned traitor to Yellow Diamond..."

The ocean gem had not a response but the look of steady, lofty eyes. Peridot, who had been fidgeting with her little fingers, caught Lapis staring through the silence. She stopped her fidgeting and opened her short arms, admitting: "What? It was a mistake, okay? I don't forget things. I only miscalculate them. I thought betraying Steven and reporting to Yellow Diamond would be the best way to fulfilling my duties as an obedient Peridot at the time, but I just couldn't forget _this!_ "

She stretched her arms wide upwards, as if pointing to everything and anything in all directions. " _This_ whole deal! This barn, this grass, those trees, the wind, the flowers, this twig, Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and even myself! Everything! This whole cloddy planet is in fact just not worth destroying for anything at all, much less a Homeworld weapon!"

Those words caused not even a flinch on Lapis's gem or her expression. Her look floated in the way that it grew more powerful the more it did not change. Peridot turned her head aback, over her shoulder, a hard breath leaving her, and began to realize how unneeded her words were until there came a reply:

"Why do you think that way?"

Peridot looked back at Lapis with raised brows. "What?"

Her eyes had turned away, breaking their stillness, and her sight wandered somewhere off to the distance. "This planet has been nothing but suffering for me." Her voice was nearly silent, and the wind could have carried it past and over through the sea. "I can hardly see why you would want to protect it."

"But it's your home now, _our_ home. Don't you want to want your home?"

"It isn't yet." Lapis said, head unturned. "Even if I want to stay here, I don't feel at home, and I can't imagine how could it even come close to home _,_ to the Homeworld I knew."

At this, Peridot had nothing to say and became aware that her silence added to something heavy between them. From Lapis, she looked down to the grass, then turning back at the hole, still unfixed and taunting. She returned herself to Lapis, who watched the hill to the distance, wondering about something that Peridot guessed lay beyond that hill and under the ocean. Uncertainty glowered over her visors, and before it rooted itself into her gem, she stood up from her knees, brushing away the loose grass and dirt from her legs, and, like a cue, cleared her throat. It caught a ribbon of Lapis's attention, her eyes turning back at her.

"Lapis, as a fellow Homeworld gem fugitive-slash-traitor, I share your grief and I felt the same way the moment I was directionless on this planet! And as a..." The air of confidence she held her head in dissipated as Lapis looked back at her, the wondering look of her eyes beaming a faint light through it. "And as a... and... as a fellow lonely gem away from home, I want to help you feel more at... home, at _home-home._ " She smiled. The words lifted her gem someplace warm

For a moment, a quiet dared to grow for no other word was said, becoming dark and heavy. But then the wonder that had shed through Lapis's eyes shimmered from the light of a dawning smile, and it swept away the shade of silence. Peridot reflected it, tendered and assured, and she gave a nod.

Her smile retreated. "But I don't understand though. How would you plan on doing that?"

Peridot placed a hand on her hip. "Hah! Simple." She picked up her pointer twig and placed it by her side and then to both her hands, as if a weapon at the ready with a growing smirk on her lime-green face to arm it. "We'll just pick up where we left off."

And so Peridot did what she was already very good at doing and Lapis did what she was still getting used to. She followed the pacing green gem's plan with a rising attentiveness and Peridot continued on with her explanation, not for once pausing to see if Lapis was listening. At least, not visibly.

As Peridot stopped to think before continuing on to her next point, she faced the tear in the barn's wall. With a glint of determination fresh in her grasp, the hole, once taunting and insurmountable, looked more and more like another day's work. And as Lapis listened, she found not only instruction and droning words. With every little sound-effect Peridot acted out ( _kablawee! brwoosh! walbolabl! thud-thud hammer-hammer!)_ , with every point of a short finger and twirl of her presanta-twig, and with every crack in her voice, a part of her smaller than her little green self showed, and to Lapis, she thought perhaps it was a part that she had never seen before, a part of something bigger, something more whole. Something entirely new.

 **II**

Her reflection watched back at her. Lapis stood in front of the artificial lake, the wind blowing by the ends of her dress. Peridot was beside her, moving on to the plan she had thought of as well as minding that the inflatable black tube still floated innocent and forgotten as if untouched even after Lapis had morphed the lake.

Her eyes, ocean blue like her very core, reminded her of the sea that trapped her, staring past a clear mirror of water, of water that made the links to her chain and the whip to her suffering. Water that defined her. Water that imprisoned her. Water that was drawn to her, connecting, harmonizing, and... imprisoning. The control that made the face of her power seeped into the tips of her fingers, a feeling that shared the embrace of an old friend, an embrace that was once suffocation.

Peridot looked to her, eyes up wide yet concerned. Since they had neared the pool, Lapis had only stared blank and silent as the water she stood by. "You okay with this, Lazuli?" Peridot said. "You look like you're over-thinking something about the water."

Her expression changed and its reflection changed with it. "Yeah. It's fine."

The wide of her eyes faded with the lowering of brows. "You sure? You don't look okay about it."

Lapis saw through the water the shifting of Peridot's eyes. She turned her head to her, looked down, and there she found the reality of the water's image. It was a clearer reflection. "It'll be alright. Really. What about you? Are you okay with this?"

The question came a mirror that Peridot couldn't quite look at. "Sort of, maybe. When you're doing your water-stuff, like when you smacked that five-ton tracking vessel out of the air, you just seem so... powerful and unstoppable. S-Steven told me all about your use of your powers, how you assumed control of nearly all of the Earth's water mass!" She spread her arms up with the last word then let them back. "So if that same power held you down, I think it would be better to ask if... you're still fine with using it."

No answer escaped Lapis, and for a moment they watched each other in silence. In her gem, Lapis thought of answers and their words rushed against each other in a hushed maelstrom below a meaningless sky. Not a sound of it reached Peridot, except:

"I'm still not sure."

The words were quiet that Peridot understood them by watching them form on the reflection of Lapis's lips. And the pause Lapis spawned brought her to continue: "When I used my powers to trap Jasper down the ocean, I was still so angry... I don't know why, but now that I'm not being used or trapped by anything or _anyone_ , I'm still... still..."

"Angry?"

"No. Not angry." Lapis said to the mirror of herself. "Afraid."

"Oh." Peridot bowed her head down, catching herself on the water. "Of what exactly?"

A strong breeze came. It blew through her hair and down to the pond. It rippled the image of her blue face upon the water. "Of myself. Just thinking about using water makes me think about who will I hurt next... Steven, the Crystal Gems, you, Jasper... myself."

Peridot could not say a response. Her triangular gem watched back itself as it drifted in its own search for a word to say, and when it could not, Peridot faced up to Lapis. Her eyes had met only itself on the water, and, like the water, she stood wordless and... tranquil. For a moment, a quiet reigned until Peridot let a calming breath and spoke.

"One thing I learned by being on this cloddy planet," she started, "is that being afraid is the first step to being something greater."

Lapis's attention moved away from her image and onto Peridot, her green eyes floating on the water as they watched back at themselves. "Steven and I made this lake, or pond, or pool, or whatever, by sealing the hole that went all the way down to the Cluster and filling it with water. When I got lost on this planet and became a... _neophyte_ to it, I was afraid too, afraid of Steven and the Crystal Gems and even more afraid of the Cluster.

"But, overtime, things changed. _I_ changed, from something compact and defenseless to... _this_." She pointed a finger to her image on the pond and to the pond itself. Lapis looked, eyes wide and in thought. "I was no longer afraid of Steven and the Cluster could go out the same window my reasons for existing as a Homeworld Peridot went. My fear became something different to me, something... clear." She looked at herself. "Like water."

Lapis stared not at the pond, but to Peridot and the words that gentled a calm to the storm in her gem. The pond reflected a picture of Peridot looking up to Lapis.

"Trust me, Lazuli. In my plan, we won't try to hurt anything or anyone. In fact, we'll fix something and fixing something that's broken is a start to get to see something different."

Lapis could see the thoughts that swirled in her blue eyes. She turned to Peridot, who had been looking at her, a slight of a small smile on one side of her lips. It was okay to be afraid. It rang in her gem, turning the meaningless sky into an endless blue that reached far and beyond. And, like a reflection on water, she smiled too and nodded.

"You're right. I'll try to be something else." She turned back to her image on the pond. "This time, I'll use my powers to help." And with those words, words Lapis would never have thought she would say, Peridot's smile grew with an unexplainable tinge of joy.

Lapis faced back at the water. Her gem stirred, a faint azure glow overtaking it, and her eyes focused. A great power took her in its timeless arms, raising her own arms over the pond, fingers stretched into a web of control. It pulled warm energy coursing through her very core, like sunlight over crashing waves and rushing tides all under the grasp of her will. A breath was all she needed. A simple pull to begin.

Her mirror image disintegrated. The water trembled.

* * *

AN: Thanks for the feedback so far! It really helps! I'll try to update this story from time to time when I get back on my main project, for now, let's keep rollin'

Stuff's getting close, and we're getting there. If there's anything that seems wrong in writing or in character, please tell me and I'll do my best to fix it.

Anyways, thank you for reading this one! Critcism is welcomed, flames nope.

See ya on the next one!

Update: Removed some major typos.


	3. A Plan

**Chapter Three: A Plan**

Much to the dismay of Peridot, the work had been taking its time. Tools floated in the air. They were carried by swaying arms of water morphed out of the pond-lake, these aqua-limbs all coming from a floating sphere tethered to an invisible line of connection that rooted itself into the gem of Lapis. Materials were lined about behind her, overseen by Peridot who counted each one and calculated each one's purpose. They were all there: stock wood and sheet metal arranged in a row; tubs of heavy-duty glue, rolls and rolls of duct tape, fat boxes of nails, and other construction trinkets that she thought she would need, all piled up in a big old cardboard box. They had enough for her construction plan, except maybe something else.

"Okay, Lazuli, with all the needed stuff gathered, we're going to get over this quick and easy." Peridot said, turning away from the tools then to Lapis, who stood by in front of the hole. "I planned that we would finish fixing this cloddy hole before the sun comes down, so now," she pumped a fist into her palm. "let's get to the _messy_ work." Then she glanced at the hovering sphere behind Lapis, as ominous as a roaming eye. "Or... _watery_ work, if that suits your style."

Another wind came and left. Lapis looked up. The noble sunlight grew shyer with every strong wind that blew. Its golden brilliance began to darken away into a fading vermillion among fortresses of clouds to mark the end of the afternoon. A new dusk was in its patient make, each second adding a thread to the fabric of twilight, and this one little green gem, smiled with a hope to outrun it. It was then that Lapis looked back to Peridot, and learned the meaning of 'unrealistic expectation'.

She let her arms down, the surging sphere of water still floating high above and behind her as she looked down to Peridot. A brow of doubt met her freshly-enthusiastic grin."I don't think we'll have enough time, Peridot... But I guess we can start now and finish it tomorrow, or some other day..."

"Tomorrow? Some other day? What are we, Rubies? Hah! With your immeasurable power, we can finish this within an extremely measurable amount of time!" Peridot pointed at the hovering mass of tap water behind Lapis. "I mean, just look at that! It reminds me of drone-augmented constructolizers back in Homeworld! Those things can finish a Kindergarten control module before Yellow Diamond could even lift a finger."

Her voice moved in skips of pride. Lapis shared no same feeling. "And because of your gem's innate and powerful abilities, the only _other_ thing you'll need, Lazuli, is instruction." She put a hand to her own chest, closed her eyes, and then mixed her excitement with a confident tone saying: "which I, as a fully capable Peridot, can provide in an all-technical, easy-to-understand, non-harsh, non-Quartz way."

Her brows lowered. "Do you really have to specify a 'non-Quartz' way?"

"Well, not everyone on Earth can like Jasper, right?" Peridot said, a bit too matter-of-factly.

Lapis looked to one side, crossing her blue arms. "Right..."

"Anyways, Lapis, rev up the water-augmented _lazulizer_!" Peridot leaned to the nearest beam of wood which was wet with Lapis's transporting, and then attempted to pick it up. "I'm going to help you with this one first. It'll give us a good start!" She grunted as she carried it with both her smaller-than-most arms, and realizing that she could not so much as lift it, she let it down and began pulling it through the grass with a heave in her voice. "In about a minute into my instruction and technical skill," Peridot pulled, "you'll see what Peridots such as myself are known for!" And again, she pulled, and tripped, and yelped, and fell face on the grass with a Peridot-sounding thud.

Lapis's eyes gave away that she had already expected this to happen, and stared at the little uneven pyramid that Peridot's triangular hair made with her face to the ground "Peridots aren't really strong, are they..."

Peridot's arms were spread, face against the soil until she looked up, a short-lived misery underneath her visors. She pushed away and pulled up her little knees and stood, dusting off the soil and the grass that stuck from her body. "It appears not... not without limb-enhancers."

"I guess not everyone on Earth can _be_ like Jasper too..."

"Right..." The shorter gem puffed out a sigh as she walked on to the hole to be fixed. "Let's just get this over with, Lazuli", then she mumbled, "and this what I meant when I said the ' _non-Quartz_ ' way."

Peridot moved on behind Lapis. She begun to say her first set of instructions, explained and already repeated numerous times when she had presented her plan. Her words went by Lapis, and she heard Peridot, but didn't quite listened to her yet. Her sea-blue eyes took a wandering upwards, squinting lightly for a moment. She thought she saw mirages of twinkling stars hiding behind fading curtains over the atmosphere... or Homeworld warships cloaked behind anti-light fields...

"Hey, Lazuli." Peridot's voice had taken Lapis's stare from the sky and down to the shorter gem.

How curious, Lapis thought, that the fleeting images of stars didn't seem to leave, that they seemed to follow her sight, and that they remained in Peridot's green eyes. It only took a second to realize that it was only imagination. "Yeah?"

She pointed a finger up, rose a brow, and glanced to the sky. "Was there _something_ you saw?"

Lapis could not find the answer. Her eyes drifted like the clouds to someplace else above, but then a wind moved in her gem, and brought them back to Peridot. It found itself there. "I just thought I saw something change."

Peridot tightened a side of her lip with unimpressed eyes. "I'd prefer to see _that_ ", she pointed at the damage, "changed, rather than _up there_ changed."

Lapis stared at the hole for a moment, and when she nodded and when Peridot sighed to continue on with her explanations, they got to work.

 **II**

Tendrils moved in succession, each one with a tool firm in their grasp. Metal clanked and wood thudded. The pulling of duct tape squeaked and the slathering of glue sploshed. Hammers bumped and smashed, and nails were put into place. One quick motion, Peridot had said, one quick motion and it will be like nothing. Water rushed with each moving limb, cutting through the silent air of the dusk. "Here, there, and here! Good! Don't miss that one! Okay, next we'll have to..." Her small voice echoed into the open, and, in pausing undertones, Lapis would ask questions and there arrived confidence in Peridot's answers. Everything was calculated. Everything else understood.

And with every empty space covered, every nail hammered into place and every layered lick of duct tape ensuring the sturdiness of their swift work, the sky moved and from silhouettes behind drapes, the stars would emerge to shine and yet, so absorbed into rushing work and instruction, neither gem would notice. Lapis continued on to focus on her powers and soon, Peridot, whose only part was to transcribe into words the blueprint pictured in her intricate gem, finally helped the other in the physical way... with light shining from her gem to help Lapis see that is...

The sun would have given its unheard and distant farewell, and would have already left this part of the world to the domain of the stars when Peridot and Lapis stood triumphant in front of the hole... or whatever it was now.

There shined on her once worried face the same grin that now taunted the once arrogant hole. Yet again, Peridot stood with hands on her hips, certain and assured that her technical knowledge had never left her. Only emptiness now filled the mat where they had assembled the materials as well as the tubs of glue, the rolls of duct tape, and boxes of nails. Lapis was beside her, the 'water-augmented lazulizer' sphere hovering but now at rest without tendrils and the tools they had held returned to the old cardboard box. Her blue arms were crossed, and even with the work done, an unchanging indifference still covered her eyes.

"Ha, ha! Finally!" Peridot raised both her arms."Ta da!", then she gestured both her small hands to the mutilated mess that was their victory.

Peridot's grin and presenting arms that waited for Lapis's response hung loose when she only looked up to the finished work which, after a moment's glance, could neither be possibly called 'finished' or 'work'. The rush that had taken them left them with... _this_. The beams of wood and sheets of metal were placed no where near an arranged order but in the fashion of 'whatever could be placed over whatever'. Heads of nails poked out of the wood and the sheet metal more like iron mushrooms than actual nails. On every crevice, there bled glue, copious amounts of it, peeking out of duct tape so layered and all-over the place that it was no longer tape but now armor with yellowish slime that seeped through its chinks. The entire mess shivered, and Lapis hoped for a second that it was just an illusion.

Lapis only looked at Peridot, eyes blank in its uncertainty, and that would be her one response. Peridot stood straight back up, and looked at their work once again, her enthusiasm not leaving. "It's perfect, see?! I mean, just look at _all that_ glue and duct tape!" She looked at Lapis. "These things, Lazuli, are what the humans use for repairing _anything_ and, trust me, they've never failed."

"Are you sure about that?" Lapis said, still doubting if the shivering was only some sort of hallucination.

"Hah! I'm absolutely, one-hundred percent sure." Peridot adjusted her visors with a finger, a smirk growing. "I calculated it. Steven's father uses duct tape and glue to fix things all the time. I heard that they even repaired a _warp-core_ with this primitive stuff. "

"They did?"

Peridot shrugged. "At least that's what I heard from Amethyst. Well, you can take everything she says with a grain of stardust, but you get what I'm saying."

Lapis looked at their 'completed product'. She decided she would rather take Amethyst's word with a nebula's worth of stardust. "I don't know. I just think you forgot about something, Peridot." She let her arms down. "It doesn't look strong."

"That's just what it _looks_ like! Now that you've mentioned it, I actually thought of it as a reflection of gems like us." She smiled at Lapis. "And even if I _did_ forget something, what would I forget? We worked at maximum efficiency _and_ minimum effort with my well laid-out plan. You had everything nailed to the center and I plotted every target, no gem unturned."

"Your plan talked about doing this quickly. It looks like it needs more... time?" Unnoticed, a piece of sheet metal which was too loosely fastened on the top part of the damage swung down without a sound. It did not fall and it was not seen.

"Time? Why would it need more time?" Peridot faced her, a hand holding her own waist. "It's already finished. It's not destroyed and, as a bonus, we did it in just about an hour when it would usually take days."

"Don't you see that it's shaking?" With another glance, Lapis saw the metal that begun to hang.

"Shaking?" Peridot turned her head to the damage, inspecting it, then turning back to Lazuli. "I don't see any shaking. Look, Lazuli, we did this together and with duct tape. There's _no way_ you can doubt its integrity. It's virtually impossible for this thing to fall apart, especially when we've just finished it."

Her arms returned to her, crossed and to her chest. "You can make a perfect plan, but without time, it's not really _a plan_."

Peridot opened her arms, disbelief in between them. "We _did_ give it time! And it's without a question, a well-laid out, thoroughly analyzed-", with a grunt, she struck a green palm to her own forehead, and then pinched the bridge of her nose. Her gem huffed a gritting frustration."You know what, Lazuli, let's just settle this with factual observations!" Peridot lit her gem-light, its shine upon the grass, then moved on back to the newly-fixed damaged once again. Lapis followed in the other's little footsteps, her arms still crossed and the hovering lazulizer sphere silent behind her.

They were back to where they had first started. While they approached the hole with a beam of gem-light to brighten it, Peridot spoke. "See? What did I tell you?" She stopped, Lapis beside her. The smaller gem closed her eyes with a smile and a presented a hand opening to the damage. "There can't be anything wrong with _this_."

This closer look and brighter light only cemented Lapis's previous thoughts. Though it was complete, every part of it, every loose nail head, wrinkled lick of duck tape, and drooping globs glue screamed one thing: shabbiness. Was this how the humans did it? So low-quality, no being other than a Ruby would allow this... She thought of it and more doubt dripped into her gem when she saw things solid slide beneath the armor of duct tape. Peridot only smiled at her, triumphant once again, not wanting to notice anything else but Lapis's next response.

Lapis turned from the abomination then to Peridot, who continued to show that she was proud of it."This thing _is_ everything wrong. "

The momentum of all things that felt good in her triangular green gem shattered as they stopped. "So what _is_ wrong with it? It's holding up fine and nothing about it is broken." A piece of sheet metal not quite fastened by the nails at the edge of the patchwork borders began its swing downwards, quiet and unseen.

"Just look at it, Peridot. It's terrible." Lapis glanced at it. "It doesn't look secure at all." She returned to the little gem, bringing words that she meant. "It's... rushed and weak."

The loose sheet fell downwards, held up by the nails, but now hanging at the mercy of the evening breeze. Peridot faced Lapis, her eyes moving into conflict with hers. "You're making this difficult, you know that? _Nothing_ about it should fall apart! This is just how the humans work, and even if their primitive craft may not be 'aesthetic', they'd still hold together fine. You should really just trust me on this, Lapis." Peridot's gem light retreated back, and they were left to starlight.

"Trust you?" The nails gave in. A sound of broken-cymbals bit into the air, the clashing descent of two stray metallic pieces causing it. They both looked at it, eyes wide. Surprise took none of them. A convenient relief washed into Lapis and what gripped into Peridot's gem tightened itself. Lapis continued, a finger pointing at the pieces. "Now you see? This is exactly what I meant. It's falling apart."

Peridot could not follow the point of her finger, for Lapis's look was all the more compelling. "My plan was founded upon my experiences working in this planet with little to no use of Gem-tech. In other words, I know what I'm doing and I know how ' _what I'm doing'_ should look. But what about you? How are _you_ sure that you've made no mistakes?"

And with the fall of one piece, it gave way to others to fall, one by one, each with their own clattering sound of either wood or metal, and yet neither gem would see nor notice. "It's not me who should be sure. It's you. You're the one who made up this elaborate 'plot' of yours, and I only followed it. It isn't my fault if your plan _sucks_. So tell me then, what exactly is it that I did wrong?"

"Nothing, Lazuli! Nothing _at all_!" Peridot said, arms going up. "In fact, because you did nothing wrong, the work we've done won't even _begin_ to fall apart."

Another piece dropped to disprove that. The sound of relief and the grip of disdain switched places between each of the gems.

"What's your problem anyway?" Lapis began, and steps forward were taken. So did glares. "Why can't you just admit that you _miscalculated_?!"

"Look, Lazuli, I've done enough work in Homeworld _and_ on this planet to know that I can't be at fault. I've made plans to engineer and construct things with and without help _or_ limb-enhancers." She placed a finger like a sword towards the other. "If there's anyone who wouldn't know what to do, it would, _objectively_ , be you. And I, _objectively_ , did my plan right."

"Don't you see, Peridot? You could do everything right, but it doesn't mean _you_ can't mess up."

"Oh, yeah?! Then I should've known that before I gave you my tape recorder only for _you_ to wreck it in front of me!"

Her words had taken Lapis aback. From something so minuscule... She grunted the reason out. It didn't matter. Not now."So this is what it's about?! About your stupid garbage?!"

Red hot sparks started sizzle in their gems, their searing heat radiating through words bitter and enraged. Another step forward, a point of a finger to lead it. "Garbage?! You call it _garbage_?! It was my salvation from this planet's insanity, my insights and sentiments, the one thing that I could count on to speak at for hours! It meant _that much_ to me, almost _everything_ in fact, and now it's gone because of _you._ Huh, so much for an _apology_ , right, Lazuli?!"

The water sphere stirred, the tremors that were soft now whirling sidewards. They grew stronger. Lapis's words hardened but her voice would not rise. "You think a mere device will take back all the suffering and torment you've put me through? Did you seriously think it would be that _quick_ and that _easy_?" And every step that Peridot had taken forward had reversed for Lapis forced her back with a glare. An orb of surging water hovered high above her and it was, very much, in her control.

What anger Peridot had would be pulled so suddenly into insignificance by the colossal gravity of something much much more terrible. She rose both her hands to her chest, palms to Lapis as she moved back with slow steps. "Lapis, I-"

From only her deep blue eyes, Peridot could feel the weight of an entire ocean's rage disinterested in what she had to say and at the same threatening to take her under. Words clenched in their anger yet silent in their sincerity came upon her.

"Do you want to know what _insanity_ really was, Peridot? _Thousands of years_ , thousands of years of it being trapped in a mirror with nothing to do but stare at the freedom I could have had, only to be released, confused and afraid, and returned to the home that was no longer there. And for what? Only because I was caught in the middle of some pathetic war on a planet I cared nothing about." The water roared, the gradual spinning now rushing waves suspended in a perfect globe. Peridot realized now that nothing would be there to save her.

"And then you came along just to start it all over again, because you thought what you did was _right_. You brought me back to where it all began. I thought you would have learned by now what it meant for me to be trapped under a desolate ocean floor _stuck_ against the suffocating pressure of a hundred seas above me, all the while fighting this new part of my being that absolutely despised my existence just to form a _thing_ so hideous and hateful."

The glare that was on her face had widened gradually to the fear that darkened in her gem. Peridot looked up no longer to Lapis, but to her embodiment of hatred that she had not too long ago jokingly called the 'lazulizer'. Everything on Earth happens so fast... and she hoped that whatever came next would be a lot more quicker... They were directly in front of the hole now, her back turned to it. Most of the important pieces not layered in the duct tape had already fallen. The rushing roar of the water overtook the quiet evening wind.

"And now you're here, expecting me to trust you, expecting me to help you fix the damage _you_ caused, and then blaming me because things didn't go as _planned_ , but just a moment ago proudly proclaiming that you wanted to make me feel more at home."

The voice of fear stammered. "Lapis, you're-"

"Well, I'm going to tell you _now_ , Peridot, something you _clearly_ don't know about me. I am the _epitome_ of things not going as planned." The sphere distorted, swirling in on itself with the force of countless whirlpools clashing in unison. "AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!"

The glued wall of duct-taped wood and metal bellowed behind them, its edges beginning to stick off as the load by its center gave in to itself. Peridot turned up to it first. The wall had begun its heavy descent down onto both of them, a shadow darker than the night covering their bodies. Lapis, too caught up in the sound of surging water behind her, was last to notice it. It came, and she had not moved but the closing of her eyes. "Watch out!" Peridot yelled but barely heard.

The shade grew darker. It collapsed onto the ground. Water splashed.

Something heavy took Lapis. The collective fall of water, metal and wood crashed through her ears. All was in silence. She had thought it was over, but she opened her eyes, and found herself on the ground, dust from the collided soil blurring the evening air. A warm hold pressed against her, and it did not take long to notice that it was Peridot, and her eyes were closed, then opening, and then suddenly wide.

"Get off me!" Lapis pushed the gem away as she stood. When she turned up from patting the stuck soil away from her soaked skirt and dress, the hole was once again there to greet her, even more disorganized than before. Their attempt to fix it now lay flat on the ground like an incomplete board.

Peridot had pulled herself up, her head bowed and her eyes scanning the damage that was now worse than before. Lapis glanced the remains of her anger at the green gem and immediately turned away and crossed her arms. Water covered both of them. Neither expected to hear 'thank you'. Lazuli had nothing more to say, but Peridot did.

Her small hands closed into fists. "I'm sorry. I... I get it now... what you meant..."

Lapis could not find the want to look at her. She bowed her head, and turned her back at Peridot, the teardrop cut of her gem visible even in the night. Silence visited. The stars watched. Peridot opened her mouth to speak, but decided not to... Their pause grew until Lapis broke it herself.

"Don't come near me." She turned her head slightly back to her. "I mean it this time." Her aqua-wings morphed out of her gem and, almost in the span of a distant star's twinkle, she flew off into the night. Its liquid rush was heard in a place not too far and not too unfamiliar: the silo. Peridot stood, alone, the hole more destroyed than it was, materials scattered all over its front. She sighed, and sat knees crossed on the soil, the lazulizer's water still wet on her skin. A dew of water dripped quietly from a blade of grass. Peridot looked at it, a hand against her weighing cheek.

"What could I do, Lazuli?" She fell on her back willingly, the ceiling of a million stars to greet her from above. She looked for Homeworld's galaxy among the crowd of shining celestial things and found it and, though she stared at it, it didn't feel like she found something. An answer, that's what she wanted see, the answer that she could do to be done with all this _mess_. She wondered how great things could've been if looking for it was as easy as stargazing...

Another uneasy breath left her. She clasped both her hands on her chest. Her palms were cold. Everything about the stars and the silence changed into something... emptier, something different. It didn't matter now, it didn't have to. She closed her eyes and spent all night thinking, alone.

* * *

AN: Heya! Thank you all for the feedback so far! I really appreciate it :D!

I changed the summary to something more... OK. I hope you guys like it, ehehe. And yep, 'what's a story without conflict?' and 'thank goodness this draft came out okay' is all I have to say for this one. Also, I put a few symbolisms here and there in the story, and maybe a little bit of foreshadowing hehe. This story's been a great opportunity for me to experiment with those elements, and yeah, keep an eye out if you wanna :D.

If there's something that seems out of place, anything I might have overlooked, feel free to tell me!

Anyways, thank you so much for reading this one! Criticism is welcomed, flaming nope. See you on the next one!


	4. Things Said, Nothing Done

**Chapter Four: Things Said, Nothing Done**

Peridot stood before the ladder upwards, looking up with the changing sky and all its clouds appearing above her. From beyond the endless ocean, the sun rose to conquer back the day with an amber cloak. She had paid the many hours before now to murmuring thoughts beneath a crowd of stars, and when the day inched its way to take the starry night, she had realized that she had, truly, done _nothing_.

Her small hand touched cold on the first rusted step that she would take, and a sigh would be there to warm it. _Don't come near me_. The words, and only words, echoed, for no face was there to complete it but a gem to turn back at her. _I mean it this time._ And they echoed, and reverberated, and echoed, and reverberated, faceless but all the more terrifying... Her gem shook like a bottomless cave, and her eyes wandered, up to the sky and down to her hand, and stopped, and into herself.

She knew that standing there by the silo's lengthy ladder meant going against what Lazuli explicitly said that night... But what else, Peridot thought, what else could she do for her? This... vacuum between them. It was not what Steven would want, what _she_ herself wouldn't want, and she guessed, perhaps, what Lapis wouldn't want... It was stupid, stupid that she was overthinking this once again; stupid garbage, stupid plan, stupid feelings, a grunt sounded in her gem, _everything_ about it was stupid. She had already given her night to the mere thinking of what to do next, and yet she stood frozen at the first step. She still didn't know what to do.

 _There were things left unsaid_. Step one. _She had to say it_. Step two. She sighed again, one last time, and finalized the scatter of her thoughts into one concrete form. She wanted her to feel more at home, _home-home_. She promised Lapis. She had already betrayed Steven once and Yellow Diamond to her yellow face. She could not find a reason to betray her own word. Her free hand clenched to a fist, and she looked back up. The end of the rusty ladder waited for her.

She had to risk it.

 **II**

When Peridot left the last step of the ladder(without any complaining this time) and arrived to the center of the domed roof, the view of the coming sun was there to greet her. Right on top of the ocean to the distance, it smiled the vermillion of its illuminant face to the sea that was its mirror of ultramarine. But that was not what she looked for. A blue figure lay on the opposite end of this roof, her body turned to the left with her delicate hands clasped in front of her. The teardrop cut of her gem glinted winks of the faraway sunlight.

Peridot calmed herself with a quiet breath inwards. Eyes determined and not leaving, she thought of what to say, to explain herself. But it had been silent. Lapis hadn't noticed her. She was... _sleeping_? A brow rose. How curious. She came closer, her steps light and careful on thin metal. Peridot squinted, and indeed, the gem who had yelled at her was silent in her sleep.

 _She knows how to sleep?_ Peridot thought, and remembered. A long unstable fusion pulling her down into depths and depths of seemingly inescapable madness taught her when she finally left it. It must have been the first thing to have felt good directly after that nightmare, and... it must have surely stuck. Whatever way she learned it, it was irrelevant now. Peridot's wonder returned in on itself to the thoughts that pricked her gem.

The little green gem remained unsure, standing and tracing with her gem to find some way to tell Lapis why she had come up here when she had specifically told her not to. The longer she stood, the more difficult it became. The first winds of the day arrived from the distance, and the clouds moved to them like a fleet of marble bastions, and to Lapis's hair like strands made out of the sea itself. Peridot gulped down whatever choking feeling clutched to her throat, and said:

"Hey, Lazuli."

No response. The same response for the same words. Peridot's eyes drifted downward to the rust-patched iron that she stood on. She knew that it wasn't particularly the best first thing to say, especially for Lapis. Another heavy breath left her. Other words might work.

She walked forwards, more careful and slow in her footing so that she wouldn't slide like before or wake Lazuli. She stopped beside the ocean gem, and then sat, a sinking feeling to help pull her down. The sun approached, and inhaled life into the day with its fiery rise. Even with Lapis beside her, sound asleep, Peridot realized that she was still alone in this gazing. She pulled her eyes away from the sun's image that looked back from the sea, and shifted her green eyes to Lapis. With her face turned away from her, she could only look at her ocean-blue gem at the center of her back. It was still her.

She could see her own reflection upon its surface. "You know,", the green gem started, "if you were awake, it wouldn't be so... unproductive to watch the sun come up."

She turned back to the sun, then hugged her short knees. The wind blew and it ran a wordless whisper in her ears. Her palm felt warm on the roof's metal. So was the inside of her gem.

"Lapis," Peridot began. "I'm going to say something. You probably won't hear it or even _want_ to hear it..." Her eyes turned towards spaces of worry, and as she spoke, every word filled them. "You were right. I'm wrong and... I'm a clod. My plan was all jumbled-up and there's some essential stuff I haven't told you. I spent all night thinking about those things, unfortunately, and wondering if... if I should tell you."

The teardrop gem stayed inanimate. Peridot aired away a grunt, her eyes turning to a side. "Look, I know that you haven't forgiven me and I understand that. I shouldn't have put my own trouble over yours. I was in over my _feelings_ , therefore it was... _unfeeling_ of me to even mention my broken tape recorder when the real problem was, in fact, myself."

She stammered. "And I knew that! That's why my plan failed, Lazuli. I sacrificed its sturdiness for more time. I wanted to fix that _thing_ as quick as we could so that, so that..." The words could not continue and slapped a palm to her own face. "Ugh. Emotions are hard to work with..." Then she let her hand down, and looked at its palm as if it held a fabric of uncertainty. "I wanted more time for us to do other meaningful stuff, but I guess that's not even worth thinking about now."

The thoughts softened her words as her gem drifted into... warmth. "You just started talking to me and I thought we had something going. I thought we could finally be... pals. But I let it go too fast and I messed up. And now I'm here,", each word spiraled down, "going against what you said." A pause. "And I'm... I'm sorry."

The gem on her back was all she could look and speak to, and Peridot pictured for a moment the anger that would have met her now. A breath left her. She lay on her back, her legs together and the roof beneath her, a waking sky over her gem. Her small hands clasped on top of her own chest.

"I just want to be friends, Lazuli. I just wanted to share this new home with you. Is that really too much to ask for?" Peridot let her eyes stay to the sight above. It was like stargazing, only that there were clouds. _Heh,_ _Cloud_ gazing. A quiet lived like it did the night before, but it felt... different with Lazuli beside her, yet still so incomplete. If she tried, she could convince herself to stay here for a time so long she would waste her hours away to it. But she knew she that she couldn't.

"Doing nothing feels a lot better when you're aren't alone." Her voice rode on the clouds. "Wouldn't it be nice if that were the solution to all of this?"

Peridot looked to her side, and she saw what she expected, the teardrop gem whose slumbering body had its back turned at the green gem. The image of her own triangular peridot caught itself. She sighed.

"Who am I even joking?" She turned her head back to see the sky. "It wouldn't matter even if you were awake anyway..." Peridot pulled herself up, but did not stand. "I'll leave you alone now. It's... what you would want from me, right?" No response, and a sigh to assure it. With broken hesitation, the short green gem stood, her feet balanced and ready to turn back. She held one last look at the sleeping Lazuli, who remained no different from when Peridot had climbed up here.

"See ya, Lazuli..." She felt better imagining those words said with a smile, but they did not. The sun caught her sight. It would be nice to stay a bit longer. _What's the point?_ Her gem uttered its leaving thoughts. It decided it could not be here anymore.

Then, with a bowed head and wordless lips, Peridot walked for the ladder, her light feet tapping on the metal until they had become steady vibrations on the rusty steps. They faded eventually. It was silent again.

The ladder stilled and the wind returned.

Lazuli's short hair drew lightly to it. Under their strands, her eyes stayed open and were so when Peridot began to speak, and as the short green gem delivered what she had to say, they had wandered like the breeze to her trail of thoughts, and when she left, a thoughtless calm had taken them. She knew that Peridot saw her eyes. She only ignored it. Lapis turned up and glanced at where Peridot had left to, and then stared at where she had been.

She turned away. The sky hued itself to the horizon where the sun would continue to ascend and where the sea would never cease to remind her. The waves she felt that moved in her gem clashed against one another, their heavy shadows she pictured up upon the sky. Lapis sighed and she let the view take her breath, but it only fell short. _It wouldn't be so... unproductive to watch the sun come up._ With each second that her eyes reflected the distant lights and the perpetual emptiness, it would only prove the words right.

Gradually, it would not be the sun that she stared to, but the thoughts clutched underneath. _I don't need anyone_. It snapped in her gem, but it was met with a memory. _I just want to be friends_. And it burned in the cold air. _I don't need her to be my friend. I just want her to leave._ Its echo distorted and her expression sunk with gloom and without strength. _I just wanted to share this new home with you._

Lapis could not let if off her mind, for they cycled and did not stop until it dawned to her. She had begun to mirror Peridot. She felt and appeared... _small_. Guilty. She had hurt her. She _still_ hadn't gotten to know Peridot in a meaningful way. She _still_ didn't like her. And it was all because she remained, well... still.

Lazuli let a glance at the barn, the newly-made damage visible even from where she sat, the fallen pieces marring the lime-colored grass around the hole. She knew that there was something she could do than just watching this sun come up, alone. _Get to know her..._ It repeated, to wash away a surge of uncertainty, but a clutch of reluctance _still_ took her. _What's the point of a home with nobody to share it with?_ That was it. It was her turn to try, but the only thing _to_ try was, in her mind, stupid.

But what else wasn't stupid on this planet?

 **II**

Lapis stood in front of the scattered mess that she had taken part of. Her wings withdrew, no sound to be heard as they retracted slowly. The wall that fell lay like a pieced-together board of duct tape and wood on the ground, some of its pieces stray on the grass. The lake that she drew water from was now only a sealed crater dry under the sun, its contents spilled away in a splash that the soil had already absorbed. The black tube sat forgotten by its center. A heavy cloud swirled in her gem, and she sighed to alleviate it enough to begin her next action. The hole, more broken than what it was, seemed more undaunted than she did to herself. That did not matter.

Lapis started a step forward into the tear, and they came one after another, until she reached the inside. The wood and lost hay touched warm below her feet. The dust and partial shade were already there to surround her. What the young sunlight could shine upon came from crevices on the roof and the robot-smashed hole. The shade took everything else. Meaningless items and surplus were hidden in whatever corner they could be kept in... under beams, on platforms, by ladders, against walls... boxes, chests, furniture, tools, paint cans, miscellaneous trinkets... A painting of a couple that hung on the backwall smiled timelessly in their old uniforms at all the musk-scented and cobweb-covered stuff that they've managed to hide here.

That was what she saw. What she heard did not fit in quite well. A high-pitched, pseudo-dramatic, have-mercy-on-me type of feminine voice sounded melancholy from a device... ' _But I don't want to betray the Maple Leaf team!_ _I've made so many friends... Please, I can't do this...'_

' _But what about us, Madeline? What about our...'_

She didn't bother listening any further. From a laddered platform, different voices shot back and forth from a source too far back to be seen, and Lapis could already guess that Peridot was up there too. She followed them, walking forwards and stopping by the wooden ladder that would lead up to it. She looked up, she knew there was something she had to say, but it was like searching for words in the chaos of a hurricane. She knew that they were there, but she could not find them.

 _What good will this do anyway..._ Lapis thought, and there came a more bitter thought. _What good is there to do..._ They came in if she would end up saying the wrong things? What if she would only cause another argument? What if they really couldn't get along no matter what? ' _If that's what I really am to you, then we're just a big mistake, Patricia!', 'Then... then get out of my sight! I don't want you here!'_ Cold had taken her hand all of a sudden, but she had then she muzzled it with a light grip to the first dry rung. It helped warm it. The end of the dusty ladder waited for her.

She hated taking risks. But she had to take this chance.

 **II**

When Lapis left the last step of the ladder and arrived to the surface of the wooden platform, the view of a TV screen was there to greet her. There were humans behind its screen, out in some forest, all wearing beige uniforms with armbands. And there was Peridot, hugging her knees on a couch, eyes to the glow of the screen.

Lapis let her eyes drift to one side. It was difficult seeing her as anything else than someone who was at fault, but Lapis had to shrug away that thought. Right now, she was only a little gem who had nothing else to do. She pushed back whatever reluctance she had with a sigh. Lazuli moved on and sat beside the green gem, not a word said as she did so.

The couch felt itchy, and their nearness itchier. Lapis found little comfort. She guessed Peridot, who did not so much as acknowledge her, had found the same too. They watched, a significant space in between them, and eventually, Lapis realized that she had no idea what she was watching. Humans were walking by a trail near a river, all close together and singing songs, with the camera suggesting that only one small blonde-haired female in particular visibly kept her distance away from a short-haired female.

"So,", Lapis began, her brows lowering, 'what is this?"

Peridot glanced up to the gem beside her, before returning herself to the screen. Dialog ran lines of ambiance. "It's... something humans do to waste time."

A pause. "Walking over rivers?"

"It's called a 'show'. Its sole purpose on this planet is entertainment. They're just a bunch of humans acting out scenarios that are all meant to instill some sort of reaction from the viewers. It's been quite effective so far, actually..."

"Oh. This is all just... pretend?"

"Yeah. It's absolutely pointless, but it's... addictive, to say the least." Her eyes hadn't left the screen. "It basically amounts to nothing. I don't even know _why_ I'm rerunning the entire Camp Pining Hearts series for the third time."

Lapis pointed a light finger. "So what's this show about?"

"It's difficult to explain... A _lot_ has happened so far, and I've seen what my droning can do to an unwilling person. We'd have to go back to very first episode if you really wanna understand it." An empty chuckle. "And I doubt if you'd want to watch this meaningless thing all the way from the start..." It faded.

Peridot had leaned against the couch's armrest, resting with her cheek against her hand. Her eyes turned away. "Time isn't really worth wasting anyway."

Lapis felt the ripples of Peridot's sinking expression when she gave a glance, and, like Peridot, her eyes strayed to one side. The TV spoke on. The chill of the words she would want to say, she would _have_ to say all took hold of her chest. Lapis crossed her arms, and gave herself the warmth of a small smile. "No. It's fine. I want to watch it."

To this, Peridot turned to her, an eyebrow risen. "A-are you sure? I mean, it starts to get worse from season four! The episodes will drag on and the plot just completely falls apart! It'll take _days_ for us to..." Blue eyes met her, and it would be the smirk to silence her.

"Then let's waste time. That doesn't sound so unproductive."

The green of her cheeks grew lighter. Her lips tightened. It grew quiet. "O-okay then... That sounds fine too..." She looked away and down to the ground, then got off the couch, walking with arms straightened downwards to a box by the TV.

Peridot leaned, holding on to the edge of the box, and dipped a hand inside. Its movement rustled in the cardboard. She got smaller box, and seeing that it wasn't the one, placed her short arm back inside, and pulled another box which appeared to be packaging. "Here it is." She moved on near the couch, pointing at the box with a grin. "Could you believe this?! Camping Pining Hearts Season one _and_ two, _special edition_!"

"What does that mean?"

"Well, Lapis, it means that it includes certain episodes that would otherwise not be in the regular copies, like behind-the-scenes, commentaries, and _fan-inspired_ episodes." She held it to her chest, and squealed. It caused Lapis to rise a brow. The little gem moved on to the tape player, pressed a button, got the tape inside and placed it to its own box on the ground. She took one tape from the packaging, and popped it in.

She stood, then faced Lapis. "It's provided so much closure, and it downright redeems the shameful blunder called 'season five'." A loud sound overtook the momentary quiet, and Lapis covered her ears. Peridot, already used to it, did not, and moved on to the couch, hurriedly climbing up then sitting. Music played, and an intro scene started on the screen with Peridot grinning along to every cut. "They play an _extended_ intro after the season one finale."

She didn't know what she sat herself into, but Lapis only gave her gem a shrug, and sat tight. The first humans appeared, and they weren't at all the humans she saw when she came up to the platform. Back and forth dialog filled in the ambiance once again.

"So how long is one 'episode'?" Lapis asked.

"Averaging about twenty-four minutes. Sometimes they skip the intro for usually significant episodes, so it could be a minute longer."

"And how many episodes does one 'season' have?"

"Oh, about thirty since it's the special edition." Peridot looked at her, her familiar grin eerily... relieving. "Isn't it great?"

Lapis's eyes moved away from the TV and then to Peridot. The heaviness she felt now brightened away to... something new. She returned to the show, a smile on her face."Well, I think I'm bored already."

Peridot chuckled. "Oh, Lazuli,", she turned to the screen, "that's just how it starts." And then she smiled at the stupidity of a thought:

It wasn't so stupid to do nothing together.

* * *

AN: Welp, this road we're taking right here feels a bit fluffy. Again, thank you for the feedback :D. If there's anything that seems off in this one, please tell me and I'll make it consistent.

Thank you for reading this one! Follow, fave, review if you wanna. Criticism is appreciated!

See you guys on the next one!


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